Growing up in South Korea, Bohyeong Kim experienced the sweeping effects of the dot-com bubble and a financial crisis that shook Asia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, completely transforming the economy. Many people lost their jobs. She saw how it affected her family, friends and society, in general.
Amid this turbulence, Kim noticed a new kind of behavior emerging. Working people started buying and selling stocks and real estate. This shift fascinated Kim, sparking her desire to research this phenomenon.
The Department of Communication’s Graduate Program welcomed alumna Bohyeong Kim back this month for a talk on her new book “Critically Capitalist: The Spirit of Asset Capitalism in South Korea.”
Now Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Kim earned her doctoral degree at UMass Amherst in 2018.
In her book she analyzes how contemporary capitalism in South Korea sustains itself by channeling popular discontent into the financial and real estate markets.
Professor Emily West, who served on Kim’s dissertation committee, said what her book reveals “is a set of very striking contradictions… People who are involved in this world say capitalism is terrible, and that it has kind of ruined their lives or the lives of people they know… And then they would take that anger and put it into, ‘Well, I'm going to get mine now.’”
West said one aspect that is relevant for communication researchers “is culture and how it is constructed and communicated.”
The culture of capitalism is something “a lot of our students are interested in, having a critical perspective on what it means to live in this stage of capitalism, how people navigate that,” West said.
When Kim was a grad student here, she took West’s qualitative research methods course. Kim said she learned a lot “about what kinds of ethical questions you need to consider when doing fieldwork and in-depth interviews.”
She put what she learned into practice when researching her dissertation, which led to the first draft of her book.
The progressive spirit and intellectual diversity in the Department of Communication and the Graduate Program inspired her research.
“The department, my supervisor Briankle Chang, and my committee members were all very supportive of my interdisciplinary coursework and dissertation project, and I was able to write about postcolonialism, national development, and subjectification for my comprehensive exams,” Kim said looking back.
West said the program is very proud of Kim and that the book is a real accomplishment, noting that Kim has also written many articles and won awards for them.
“A book really plants a flag,” West said. “It's something that enhances your visibility and it kind of says ‘you own this. This is a type of argument or a type of research that is now forever associated with you.’”
Gonen Dori-Hacohen, the director of the Graduate Program said when alumni return to discuss their work it’s inspiring for current students, who may find an opportunity to collaborate on future research
“For us, graduate students are our legacy. The represent the most important thing we do, which is create and promote new research.”
Being invited back by the Graduate Program to discuss her book, and the program’s overall support, means a lot to Kim.
“It takes a village to raise a PhD, and I am very grateful for how generous the entire faculty was to me,” she wrote in an email. “I came to understand better what great care and guidance I received -- after I became faculty myself.”
The impact of Comm’s Grad Program goes far beyond defending a dissertation. It instills skills, values, and insights that stay with alumni wherever their careers lead.